


I'll Mold You in Porcelain and Gold

by Boomchick



Series: Sefikura Week 2021 [3]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Dehumanization, Fantasy AU, Jealousy, M/M, Mind Control, Possessive Behavior, Puppet Cloud Strife, Puppets, Sefikura Week 2021
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29032806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boomchick/pseuds/Boomchick
Summary: Sefikura Week Day 3: [Puppet]The travelling performance draws all eyes.His beloved puppet draws their hearts.But Sephiroth will not share Cloud. Not with anything. Not with anyone.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Series: Sefikura Week 2021 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2126409
Comments: 11
Kudos: 156
Collections: Sefikura (Sephiroth/Cloud) Week - Yearly Event





	I'll Mold You in Porcelain and Gold

He was worrying at his jointed fingers. The sweet little puppet. One carved thumb, rubbing its perfect fingernail into the joint of his first finger. He spread his hand. He curled it again. He tilted his head loosely.

“How does it feel?” Sephiroth asked him.

“Like I should not be alive.” Cloud replied.

“That’s just how much I love you.” Sephiroth told him, and kissed the smooth porcelain of his forehead.

* * *

Sephiroth gave his puppet a sword and watched him fight. He gave his puppet a dress and watched him dance. He gave his puppet gentle touches in his hair, and sent him out on stage, and watched the audience marvel.

Sephiroth was often called away. He had to drag his eyes off his puppet every time.

* * *

His puppet was beloved. Not only by him. Jealousy was a cold, clinging thing. It wormed into Sephiroth’s throat and stayed there. He hung back in the shadows, watching his puppet talk to the people backstage. The dull creatures who pulled ropes so the real magic could happen.

“Do not forget who loves you most,” he warned his puppet.

“Never.” Cloud promised him, and pressed against his chest. 

Cloud’s body was cool, and smooth, but he warmed when Sephiroth held him. Sephiroth could almost pretend.

* * *

Sephiroth gave Cloud gifts. A necklace. A bracelet. An anklet. A sash.

He pretended he did not know what they were.

A collar, a shackle, a manacle, a binding.

_ Mine _ he thought as he closed the necklace behind Cloud’s delicate throat.  _ Mine _ as he clasped the bracelet on his wrist.  _ Mine _ as he kissed his carved foot beneath his new anklet.  _ Mine _ as he knotted the sash around his thin frame.

“They suit you.” He said, sliding his hand up Cloud’s side, resting it at the base of the necklace he had given him.

“Do you love me because of how I look?” Cloud asked, leaning against him. Light wood and hollow porcelain but sturdy enough. Real enough.

“No.” Sephiroth told him, and kissed the joint of his shoulder.

* * *

When Cloud tried to talk to the no ones backstage, the necklace tightened and silenced his voice.

When in his performance Cloud held the hand of the princess too long, the bracelet heated warningly and scorched the wood beneath it.

When Cloud tried to refuse the dance, the anklet lifted his leg in a pirouette to remind him that he was a puppet.

When Cloud tried to leave, the sash dragged him back.

“Take them off,” Cloud begged him.

“Why?” Sephiroth asked. “They are powered by my love for you. If you love me as I love you, you need never fear them.”

* * *

“It hurts.” Cloud whispered as Sephiroth inspected the ever-worsening burn on his arm.

“Then why do you worsen it?” Sephiroth asked, even as he wrapped his hand lovingly over that carved wrist. Whispered his magic into it. Let the wood restore itself as if it were still living.

“Everything I touch burns it.” Cloud replied dully.

“Not me.” Sephiroth reminded him, and kissed the palm of his hand to prove it.

* * *

Sephiroth loved to watch Cloud’s face while he danced. It was fragile, like his hands. Delicate and lovely, with accents made of gold curved over his forehead and cheeks, framing his jawline, accentuating his perfect inhumanity.

He didn’t know why Cloud was crying. He didn’t know it was possible. 

Sephiroth swept him into his arms when he was finished and gathered the golden tears on the tips of his fingers.

“What a wonder my love has made you.” he whispered, holding Cloud close.

Cloud did not answer. He rarely spoke now, but he never spoke to anyone but Sephiroth. So Sephiroth treasured the scarcity. It was all his. 

The golden marks stayed on Cloud’s face; new decorations over pale porcelain cheeks.

* * *

Sephiroth had been called away. There was so much to do. So much magic to be woven, while men gaped at the dancers. While women wept at the sight of Cloud’s motion. While people stood transfixed with the first magic they’d ever seen.

None of it meant anything to Sephiroth. None of it but Cloud. The magic was just a tool, and he used it to carry out Mother’s will. To keep their world safe. To keep his gifts.

To keep his puppet.

He did not know who gave the photo to his puppet. He only knew that he came home to find Cloud, his arm burning in slow, cracking embers around the bracelet, smoke billowing out of his wrist while the stagehands gathered around him and called his name.

Cloud did not speak to them. But when Sephiroth entered he lifted his head. Spoke in dull, broken words, his porcelain fingers tight around the photograph even as his arm burned.

“You told me you made me.” He said.

Sephiroth cut his strings. Severed his magic. Left the puppet sagging.

“Leave us.” He snapped to the stagehands. 

But they did not move. The princess straightened. Her hand on Cloud’s shoulder. The one who pulled the ropes put himself between them. The one whose cats performed stayed crouched at Cloud’s side.

They glared. Sephiroth stared. How long had it been since anyone dared?

No matter. He wiped their memories of that day and filled their blood with alcohol. Just enough. A bad hangover would explain away the gap in time.

He lifted Cloud away from their limp bodies, and carried him back to their room.

Cloud’s eyes stayed open, turned back towards where they’d gone, and his soft, sweet lips trembled as Sephiroth murmured loving words.

“Did you kill them?” Cloud whispered, voice strangled past his necklace.

“No,” Sephiroth chuckled, shaking his head at his indulgence of Cloud’s whims. “You may keep your toys.”

Cloud’s head tilted back in his arms. The tears that slid from the corners of his eyes added new golden markings on his face, tracing back into his hair.

* * *

Cloud’s arm was beyond repair. Sephiroth removed it. 

He plucked the photo from the porcelain hand that still gripped it tightly. Stared down at the image.

Cloud did not speak. He sat slumped in the chair where he’d been placed, every bit the puppet Sephiroth had made him.

In the photo Cloud beamed at the camera with a plain face. No gold. No tears. His eyes were the same, though. His beautiful eyes.

Sephiroth burned it.

* * *

“There, my puppet.” Sephiroth murmured, voice soothing and soft as he connected Cloud’s new arm.

Cloud blinked down at it with heavy eyes. Gold tears dotted his shirt like gemstones.

He turned the hand over. Took his lips thinned. His eyes tightened.

Sephiroth had mended the half-melted bracelet and affixed it to the wood with golden rivets and silver screws.

“It hurts.” Cloud said, his voice empty.

Sephiroth lifted his wrist. Kissed the screws in the wood.

“It’s good that you can feel it.” Sephiroth said, and stroked Cloud’s perfect hair.

* * *

“I’m begging you.” Cloud whispered, days later, face pressed to Sephiroth’s chest. “If you love me.”

“You know I do.” Sephiroth replied. But he stroked Cloud’s cheek, over the streaks of gold, and pressed a soft kiss to his hair.

“Who was he?” Cloud begged. “What happened?”

“You have always been yourself.” Sephiroth assured him, sliding a hand down his back. Curved and smooth and perfect. Joint beneath his chest, at the start of his hips, to give him the range of motion they needed. No, he needed. It was for him, after all.

“Then why?” Cloud pressed closer. Tangled his hands in his shirt.

“It was an accident,” Sephiroth soothed, hand at Cloud’s hip. “Nibelheim had so much magic, and Mother was so, so hungry.”

Cloud made a strained noise, but Sephiroth could say no more. Mother did not like being spoken of, and tightened the silver thread around his throat.

He was not permitted to breathe till morning.

* * *

He had always, always, always loved Cloud.

The boy who made him stay in Nibelheim too long.

The boy with soft skin and softer kisses.

The boy Mother killed with all the others.

Sephiroth held him. Held him close. His spirit. His soul. Bound it to wood and gold. Loved him back to life.

* * *

Mother’s displeasure followed him for days. Roiled around him. He visited her portrait. He worshipped her. He freshened the blood on her canvas.

He knew she would forgive him in time. She loved him.

* * *

“Don’t make this harder.” Sephiroth said. 

Mother was straining his joints with force. Lunge, strike, parry. Cloud had a real sword now. Held it only with his right hand. His left smoldered gently.

The stagehands were armed. Were waiting. Sephiroth didn’t know why they were hanging back.

Mother was so, so angry.

Cloud clashed his sword against Sephiroth’s. His face was perfect, and beautiful, and twisted in fury. The porcelain chipped from their battle.

“Just stop.” Sephiroth whispered, bearing down against him. “Just stop. I can still repair you.”

Cloud’s eyes softened. Saddened. Those gold tears welling. Sephiroth didn’t know why.

His puppet braced his feet. Gripped the sword with both hands. The bracelet started smoldering. He was not supposed to hold anything but Sephiroth. He was not supposed to treasure anything but Sephiroth.

“Stop.” Sephiroth told him. “Just stop, and I will love you.”

“Love me.” Cloud whispered in a voice that echoed out from his porcelain lips. “You have never loved anything.”

The necklace choked off his words before he could say more.

Cloud released the sword with both hands. Sephiroth’s sword lurched forward, and Mother gripped the strands of silver in him, pulled it to cleave Cloud in half and Sephiroth couldn’t—  _ wouldn’t. _ He pulled back.

Cloud pushed forward. Lifted his burning arm, and shoved the burning wood against Sephiroth’s eyes.

* * *

Sephiroth’s tears were silver. They were not of pain. The world went blank before him. Mother cut his strings.

* * *

The puppet had not moved since Cloud threw it to the ground, silver bleeding from its eyes. It did not move when they tore the theater down. Not when Cloud’s burning arm set alight the portrait of Mother and with it his last connection to her. Not when the stagehands and onlookers gathered around the blond boy with the chipped porcelain face.

The puppet watched those people. Watched them pry off the necklace. Unscrew the bracelet from smouldering wood. Tear away the sash. Peel off the anklet.

The puppet did not move until Cloud returned, and dropped to one knee before him. Beautiful and graceful as a dancer.

Cloud did not need his strings to move. He never had. They had only bound him.

“Don’t leave me.” Begged the puppet, hollowed out and afraid.

“I’ll help you.” Cloud replied, a cool hand on the puppet’s temple, brushing aside silver hair. “But you must learn to love.”

“I do.” Said the puppet. “I love you.”

But Cloud shook his head. He lifted the puppet in his arms, and kissed his cold lips sweetly. “Not me,” he told the puppet. “Not me.”

* * *

The group that traveled from town to town, righting the wrongs of the witch Jenova, was led by a young man who looked like a puppet. His face was molded from porcelain, and his fingers were delicate and smooth. He moved like a dancer and fought like a demon.

He was joined by a crew of men and women. Humans who had seen the witch’s work first-hand. Who had helped, not knowing what they did.

And they were followed, always, by a silver shadow. A creature that was as likely to watch through cloudy eyes as to lift a hand. It wore no jewelry. It often touched its neck with hands, as if amazed that it could breathe.

It was beautiful, and sad, and strange. It watched Cloud always, and did not touch. But sometimes Cloud would touch it. Would slide his fingers over the puppet’s face, and speak softly to him. Would feed him. Would encourage the others to try.

They brought him new clothes.   
  
They cured his foggy eyes.

When he showed them how, they pulled the silver threads from beneath his skin.

And slowly,

slowly,

the puppet learned to love.


End file.
